One of the most widely circulated newspapers in the world, Egypt’s Al Ahram, recently ran a fake picture depicting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak walking in front of U.S. President Barack Obama and a pack of other Mideast leaders. In fact, based on the original photo, Mubarak, the octogenarian, appeared trailing last.

Why the outlandish deception by an internationally recognized newspaper founded in 1875? Al Ahram editor Ossama al-Saraya defended the fraudulent photo by referring to it as an “expressionist photo … a brief, live and true expression of the prominent stance of President Mubarak in the Palestinian issue, his unique role in leading it before Washington.” All well and good, but beyond the euphemisms and rationalizations, the fact remains: by portraying something that was not true, the state-run Al Ahram intentionally tried to deceive the people.

On the one hand, as Wael Khalil, the Egyptian blogger who first called attention to the altered photo, pointed out, this anecdote is a snapshot of the routine deception the Egyptian government foists on the people: “They lie to us all the time. Instead of addressing the real issues, they just Photoshop it.” On a deeper level, this incident reveals that, contrary to common belief, the fundamental problem facing the reformation of the Islamic world is not merely doctrinal; it is cultural.

Consider: even though sharia law promotes various troubling doctrines — the subjugation of non-Muslims and women, animosity to the non-Muslim world, even the use of deception, as in the case of the Mubarak picture — the one hope has been that only “radical” Muslims follow these mandates. And this is true, consciously speaking. Unconsciously, however, sharia’s teachings have become deeply imbedded in Muslim culture, permeating the worldview of all people born or bred in the Islamic world, regardless of whether they are “moderate” or “radical,” indeed, regardless of whether they are Muslim at all.

Marshall Hodgson coined the term “Islamicate” to describe this phenomenon, which refers “not directly to the religion, Islam, itself, but to the socialand culturalcomplex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both among Muslims themselves and even when found among non-Muslims” (The Venture of Islam, vol. 1, p.59). Daniel Pipes agrees: “Shar‘i regulations were also at the heart of many Islamicate patterns. … [T]he Muslim approach to politics derives from the invariant premises of the religion and from fundamental themes established more than a millennium ago” (In the Path of God, pgs. 91-93).

24 Comments, 19 Threads

1.
Morton Doodslag

It is deeply worrying that so many in the West will project onto the Muslim ‘other’ those best traits which he/she aspires to. Muslims are under no similar delusion. Muslims are relentlessly indoctrinated to project the worst onto the reviled “infidel”, and even those who do not do so overtly or aggressively, will inevitably project the worst onto ‘the other’ whenever confronted with cultural dissonance between Islam and the West. This means that Islam will never give way to Western sensibilities, whereas the West is poised to deeply imbibe (and poison itself) with Muslim mores.

This one-way cultural street augers very ill for the West given our suicidal allowance of several tens of millions of cultural aliens into our precincts in Europe and America in recent decades. It guarantees that the best the West has to offer will be perverted and eroded, while the worst Muslims have to offer will be reinforced and gradually strengthened.

The concentration of Muslims in America is barely 1%, and yet Muslims are already widely engaged in asserting their Islamically derived dominance through myriad acts of Jihad. This ranges today from the triumphal GZM, the widespread parasitization of our civil rights movement (depicting themselves as victims of Western intolerance -laughable) in order to pillage and loot the West for the sole benefit of Muslims at infidel expense. It also includes, of course, the myriad acts of violent Jihad and Jihad funding in which Muslims are embroiled in virtually every community in which they reside in the West. If the West truly grasped this lethal psychological mindset among Muslims, then Western aid and commerce to Muslims in nearly all circumstances would be wisely curtailed down to zero, and the lunacy of permitting Muslims to practice and spread Islam in the West would be seen as insane.

One additional aspect of Muslim psychology not mentioned above is germane to the discussion. That is the alien notion of “inshallah fatalism”. This is the cultural tendency of Muslims, and especially Arab Muslims, to ascribe humiliations and setbacks as the arbitrary will of a fickle Allah. It’s counterpart, not widely understood, is the tendency to ascribe good fortune as well as the sole will of Allah.

Under this sytem of an all-powerful, sometimes capricious and arbitrary Allah, Muslims don’t have much reason to self reflect when confronted by deep humiliation. One might think the Mubarek fiasco would deeply humiliate the easily humiliated (at infidels anyway) Arabs. But “inshallah fatalism” kicks in, and a shrug of the shoulders is just as likely when it’s perceived as a Muslim affair. This doesn’t speak well for the capacity of Muslims to self reflect on the myriad ways Islam has destroyed lives for millennia.

This brings me back to the topic of aid and commerce flowing from infidel hands into Muslim coffers. It is widely believed among Westerners that the venture of “winning hearts and minds” is a worthy endeavor for the West among Muslims. But the flip side of “inshallah fatalism” short circuits any hope of success for this tragic blunder by Westerners. If anything we do is percceived as beneficial to Muslims, credit will accrue to Allah and Allah alone in Muslim minds.

Westerners passing out tsunami or earthquake aid or building the first sewer system that the Arabs and Afghans have ever seen will not be experienced by those cultural Muslims as kindness from the West. Since all things good and bad come ultimately solely from the hand of Allah, Muslims are far more likely to think of “infidels” as the witless tools of Allah’s munificence. So in a tragic irony of the ages, all the “Muslim outreach” the West is engaging in to “win their hearts and minds”, all the blood and treasure we’re squandering in the Muslim world is doomed to fail utterly. Rather than instilling gratitiude in Muslims hearts towards “infidels”, we only reinforce their notions that Allah works in mysterious ways — in short, reinforcing Muslim commitment to Islam all the more. And that first bite of food after the latest disaster in which the Muslim world gives a million (if anything) while the West ponies up billions of dollars and thousands of tons of free food, all of it will result in fervent thanks to Allah, and barely a thought for the witless unbeliever who served as Allah’s mule for the benefit of the worthy.

In a case where all failure and all success can only be ascribed to Allah, but where “infidels” serve as convenient whipping boys when circumstance provides, is it any wonder that Muslims are not integrating into the West, and that “winning their hearts and minds”, providing a $trillion, and the death of nearly 5,000 Americans to bring them functioning government can all be undone by a lone pastor in Florida burning a Koran?!?

So through the relentless reducing ‘the other’ to “infidel” status within Islam, Muslims no not think of us a worthy humans. We, on the other hand, unquestioningly ascribe full humanity to them and act accordingly, even when in conflict. This is why they hate us, and why we are idiots to tolerate them on our soil. This is why Muslims will never safely and permanently assimilate into the West. There is no way for the West to benefit by befriending Muslims. They will never be our true friends. We must seal ourselves off from them in every way possible. Our tolerance and generosity is a poison dagger in Muslim hands – and we hand it to them in our profound ignorance of Muslim psychology. They will exploit every benefit and opportunity we hand them to pervert into weapons for our subjugation and destruction.

Only when Islam is condemned for the faux religion it is and exposed as a cult of intolerance and warfare, designed by a madman who stole portions of Judaism and Christianity and combined them with nomadic tribal savagery, will the world start to be safe from it’s followers. We must identify, acknowledge, and then destroy our enemies.

Islam is not a religion. Its religious aspect is a veneer justifying all manner of lies and political control; it is an authoritarian political ideology pretending to be a religion. Nothing done in the Muslim world, whether by a secular or by a religious Muslim leader, to fool his own people or other people should surprise us in the West.

I am reminded by this story of an episode of “Seinfeld,” in which George, the neurotic moocher and ne’er-do-well, buys a car from a used car salesman who tells him, quite truthfully, that it was once owned by Jon Voight, the actor. George buys the car for that reason only, and his chronically tenuous self-esteem is inflated because now he can boast to distraction that he owns a car driven by a famous person. It turns out that the car was indeed owned by a “John Voight,” by a near namesake but not by the actor. George’s new-found self-esteem rapidly deflates like a leaky balloon.

The episode described by Mr. Ibrahim here of the newspaper faking a photograph of Hosni Mubarak’s falsified place in the scheme of things is equally pathetic, and also points to a problem not only with Islam but with Muslim “culture.” If by a “culture” we mean a set of fundamental beliefs and practices shared by a specific group of people, then Muslim “culture” is fraught with many deterministic and nihilistic premises grounded on one core tenet which Islam shares with Christianity and any other religion: the assertion of an unprovable existence of a supreme being, one who authored creation and who is either omniscient or omnipotent, or, paradoxically, both.

The name of this being is immaterial. The formation of a moral code based on the existence and power of a ghost is destined to inculcate and encourage a dishonesty (in this case, Koran-sanctioned taqiya) that manifests itself in countless forms even among those who are not particularly avid devotees to the religion, including indifferent Muslims-in-name-only (“moderates”) and alleged secularists such as Hosni Mubarak and the newspaper’s editor. The tenet requires men to work against the evidence of their senses, and often to pretend that some things are “real” and significant, even though no one can observe them. It requires them to fake reality, to appeal to an attribute of man that the creed denigrates in order to perpetuate a lie or a myth.

The phenomena may be observed in cultures dominated by Christianity, as well. Witness the recent statements by Pope Benedict in Britain that atheism or “godlessness” can only lead to Nazism, when in fact Nazism was founded on its own virulent brand of mysticism, with Hitler as its “prophet” (and it was mostly German Lutherans who buttressed his regime, with a major assist by the Vatican) espousing the superiority of the German race and culture, Germany’s “rightful” place in the scheme of things, the elevation of “instinct” and force over reason, and so on.

I disagree with Mr. Ibrahim’s random list of benign concepts that were “casually embedded” by a ubiquitous Christian morality in Western civilization — he omits individual rights, which are not the same as the vague, notion of unspecified “human rights,” which any statist or power-seeker can champion by just filling in the blanks, while “tolerance” can also mean toleration of the irrational — but he is right that “the teachings of a religion can subtly color the worldview of its non-observant posterity.”

So, the solution for “moderate” Muslims who wish to reform Islam and chuck its poisonous and tribalist influence in Muslim “culture” (whatever that may be, aside from the equally faked “Golden Age” of Islam and Cordoba) is to abandon Islam altogether and discover and advocate reason in all things, especially all things moral. They, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other “apostates“ have done, must recognize that Islam, like Christianity, is a used car lot clunker or a money pit. It was once owned by scimitar-wielding thug who falsely claimed it won a NASCAR race, but which will require fortunes in labor and parts to keep it in running order. ”Moderate” Muslims should just cut their losses and walk away from it, and discover a philosophy of reason.

“…by portraying something that was not true, the state-run Al Ahram intentionally tried to deceive the people.”

Well, gee willikers, we can’t have that now, can we.

Tell the Arabs to get in touch with our “president,” our network work “media” and the majority Left in the US Congress (i.e., healthscare, Economic Lies as Told Daily) to obtain the Cliff notes on intentionally deceiving the people.

While on a visit to Jordan several years back, the local tour guide spoke to us about Moslem past glories, including the outright distortion that most people converted to Islam of their own free-will out of love for Mo and his god. I knew, as did every person on the tour knew, that Islam was spread by the sword. His lies continued until I just blocked him out and looked at the scenery. They must think infidels are complete IDIOTS who do not know history.

Firstly, thanks to Pajamas Media for providing a forum to Mr. Ibrahim, which in turn, gives us what the Arab world lacks, a place to express on an individual level [a fatwah-free zone].

Not touched upon historically … the lack of a reformation within Islam. In fact, in its many manifestations, it has become more violent. The rise of Wahabi the past several hundred years has given birth to al-Qaida and its off shoots throughout the entire Middle East and beyond.

True, Toronto Girl, your guide does think infidels are idiots – because the quran tells him so: “your enemies are stupid” (which, by our behaviour to date, it sure looks like we are).

As for the rest of his shpiel, that most people converted to islam of their own free will, he believes it. And even if he knows it isn’t true, islam allows him to simultaneously believe it – like Mossad and the CIA are responsible for 9/11 while celebrating the 11 heroic martyrs.

He also stated that one of Mohammad’s wives was a Jewess who converted willingly. I did some research when I got back home and could not find any evidence of this claim. Having lived in Israel for many years, I know that the Arab press distorts the number of their own war dead and that of their enemies. Islam is the Fifth Column and Moslems should be treated with suspicion until proven otherwise.

This is the most incisive, succinct description of just what it is we’re up against that I have ever read. Would that it were read by every citizen of the land. (You are also a very gifted writer, which probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given the level your ability to reason.)

This is of course, in perfect snyc with the Muslim need for a narrative consistent with their inflated sense of self importance.

Whatever the lie, however the lie, its always a lie. They must project themselves into the context as not mere participants, but defining, central forces. The world revolves around them.

The Koran is scientifically perfect and correct. Islam is a religion of peace. They were more advanced than other cultures. Lies and lies and more lies they MUST say over and over (with a straight face)because it is their way of dealing with constant utter failure.

As with the increase of bombings in Iraq recently, they are dovetailing the events into the narrative….Now that we have announced and “end to combat operations” they need some event(s), no matter how contrived or disingenuous, to prove the brave Muj have “defeated” the americans, that they are withdrawing “under fire” in the “final battle” that “drives them away”.

Same with every withdrawl from Gaza, west bank, Siani, where ever. When its an agreed, quid po quo negotiation, they will fire rockets and bullets as soon as the Isralies move out, just to to “prove” (pretend) they were “kicked out”.

Regardless of the real reasons, some tin-horn Islamic millitia type will carve into their local history the great victory attributable to them.

The deep dark secret of Islam is that it is a SHAM, and they all know it. They hide behind self righteousness, the perpetual outrage, the “only in original arabic” requirements of reading their scriptures as a buffer, to (hopefully) gain enough power as an accepted world power, before anyone sees behind the Curtain, and laughs.

A petty, ignorant band of murderers and pirates pretending to be a world civilization.

The socalled “Islamic street” is by and large a huge, young, illiterate and impoverished population that truly believes the myth that evil Jews and Americans sit and plot daily to keep them down. They do not read, but instead are read to by mullahs and imams who shape their messages to the reverent faithful with the intention of channeling anger against the culture that has restricted growth toward those very sectors that would allow these poor people to grow and modernize. The mullahs have no intention of allowing these groups to gain their own power through education. It is imperative to the mullahs in charge that they control and shape the imagery of their agenda. So while an Islamic Cultural Interfaith Center or whatever they are calling it this week in New York, read as just that to most people, to the mullahs and their ignorant followers it will be a victory mosque. Their sheer numbers and word of mouth will push conventional wisdom and allow the lie to overtake the truth. The photo of Mubarak is just more of the same. This culture is so corrupt with twisted patriachical dogma that even allowing another non-Muslim man to be seen as in the lead is tantamount to heresy. It is a medieval religion, wrapped in tribal taboos, foisted on the poor with promises that they can steal wealth from others with impunity under the name of Allah.

Another proof that the Arab propaganda machine is alive and well! Yet the west continually quotes the lies in the media again and again. They especially love to listen to the lies against Israel. You will hear some bit of truth from a news outlet that is hushed up the very next day. DO YOU THINK THE OIL CORPORATIONS AND ALL RELATED INDUSTRIES, WHICH INCLUDES THE GOVT. OFFICIALS WHO ARE BRIBED EVERY DAY TO KEEP THEIR JOBS, HAVE A HAND IN SHUTTING OFF THOSE STORIES?

Why should this surprise any of us when we have seen “doctored” photos from Reuters, AFP, AP, CNN, et al. for years. Many of them ARE from Muslim employees of these agencies. It does take a few to make it bad for most. Perhaps we should never believe anything that comes from these “news” sources as it’s mostly faked anyway. Just think of the story of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf.” I do not believe anything that CNN, Reuters, AP, NY Times have to state because of the many lies being pushed as facts.

By the way, this same newspaper in Egypt also had destroyed all photos it had of Haji al Husseini and Hitler after there were many requests for them over the years. Since the paper itself had become more of a Muslim Brotherhood newspaper facts, realities are no longer part of the norm.

Thay are practicing Al-Taqiyya – The Permission From Allah To Lie To The Infidel! Taqiya is the reason you hear all the soothing words and contradictions about peace between Arabs and Jews or ground zero mosques. This is the single most important thing you MUST understand when dealing with or listening to ANYONE who is of the Islamic faith. Do yourself a big favor and go here: Al-Taqiyya – Permission To Lie To The Infidel http://actioninengland.mywowbb.com/forum68/207.html